Ravibha Jeyanathan, a member of Pothuvudamai Iyakkam (Socialist Movement) in Tamil Nadu, India. She will discuss

 the current Indian political and socio-economic situation with a focus on the current state of left politics in India. She will also be exploring the left's historical evolution, ideological shift and contemporary relevance, as well as strategies for working-class emancipation in India as part of the global struggle against capitalism.

The socialist left in India today

Students for Palestine national meetup

Hear from revolutionary socialist Joonseok as he discusses the characteristics of capitalism and class struggle in South Korea, from the bourgeois two-party system to the process of formation of the left, including reformist parties and revolutionary forces. Joonseok will explain what revolutionary socialists are fighting for in South Korea, such as the general strike for workers' demands, the women's strike, the worker-led climate movement, and the anti-imperialist/anti-war movement.

What are revolutionary socialists fighting for in South Korea?

Anti-Zionist, Israeli-born socialist Moshé Machover will be interviewed by Socialist Alternative’s Daniel Taylor in this session. They will look at the nature of Israeli society, from its class composition to contemporary politics, and the implications for Palestinian liberation.

Moshé Machover: An Israeli socialist against Zionism

Hear from Gazan writer and professor Haidar Eid, who fled Israel's recent assault on the territory. He will speak on the terrible genocide being carried out with the full support of the Australian government, and explain the decades of colonial occupation that have led to this disaster.

Undoing Oslo

Israel’s Gaza genocide: an eyewitness report

Don't miss the inspirational finale to Marxism 2024!

Wrap up the discussions and debates of the past three days by hearing what it's like to be a socialist activist who dedicates their life to fighting every injustice and building a movement that can one day overthrow capitalism for good. This all-in session will sum up the key issues faced by the left today and explain why it's so important for anyone who hates capitalism to get active and get organised in a group like Socialist Alternative. The speakers will represent three generations of our group – from the students in our campus clubs bringing socialist politics to young rebels, through the workers organising as rank-and-file unionists, to the long-time members who have spent decades doing the work of building the socialist left.

Closing night: why you should be a socialist

Join us to launch the new and much-needed book 

The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands

 by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone, published by Interventions. The claim of Israel and its apologists to represent Jews everywhere and the growth of the anti-semitic far right make understanding and celebrating the long history of left-wing and working-class Jewish activism essential for anyone involved in Palestine solidarity today. Copies of the book will be available at Marxism 2024 and one of the authors, Janey Stone, will be available to sign copies.

BOOK LAUNCH – "The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands" by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone

The level of suffering in Gaza is more than the human mind can comprehend. An entire people are being systematically destroyed, their lives, histories and culture blown to pieces or buried under rubble. Western governments, including our own, occasionally express "concern" over Israel's occasional excesses, yet are happy to continue sending Israel aid while cutting off desperately needed support to UNRWA and other aid agencies. 

Meanwhile, Israeli society is shifting further and further to the right, with fascists in government calling for the total cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.

Marxism 2024 is proud to be hosting this unique panel of activists, organisers and intellectuals to discuss the struggle for Palestinian liberation at a historic moment. Speakers will be addressing the current situation, but vitally, looking at the nearly 100 years of colonialism and imperialism that created the conditions for the tragedy unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank right now.

The Story of Palestine

PANEL – The struggle for a free Palestine: against colonialism, empire and capital

The 2010s were rocked by mass protest movements across the globe. Millions of people occupied city squares, defied dictators, confronted police and exposed the dramatic inequalities that had been entrenched throughout the world during the neoliberal era. Yet by the end of the decade, the world was even more unequal, undemocratic and unjust than before. This was the case even in those countries that had seen the biggest protest movements in their history.

This session will feature Vincent Bevins, whose book 

sympathetically at these movements and contributes some lessons for those of us participating in the struggle for a better world today.

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

If we burn: the mass protest decade and the missing revolution

Trump back in the White House? The depravity of American politics

Egypt is the largest and most important country in the Arab world. It possesses an enormous working class with the social power to shake, and one day destroy, the power of capitalism and imperialism in the region. This is not just a theoretical possibility 

 workers in Egypt have been crucial to all of the major social rebellions in the country's history, from ending the British mandate in the 1950s to the overthrow of Mubarak's regime in 2011. Hear from an Egyptian socialist and historian about this hidden history and its strategic implications for revolution in the Middle East.

Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954

Jan 18 and 19, 1977: "uprising of thevies" or aborted revolution?  

The workers’ movement, revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt

The revolutionary history of the Egyptian working class

From the late 1960s a mass movement against the brutal US and Australian war in Vietnam shook Australian society. Thousands of radical students and young people resisted conscription and marched in the streets, linking up with workers who went on strike and refused to transport material for the war.

This blazed a trail for other movements in the 1970s, 80s and 90s against the nuclear fuel chain, US bases, and the arms industry. With new wars and imperialist tensions building today, there’s a clear need for a new movement of resistance to the war machine, building on lessons from the radical movements of the past.

A people’s history of the Vietnam War

Students in the anti-Vietnam-war movement in Australia

It takes a lot to stop a war 

The movement against uranium mining

Leave it in the ground: stopping the Jabiluka mine

PANEL – Disrupting the Australian war machine: lessons, strategies, tactics

South Africa: from the end of apartheid to today 

The Palestinian struggle for freedom has historically been contested between nationalists, Islamists and various left-wing forces. This talk will consider the history of the Palestinian left from the 1970s to the post-Oslo Accord years. In particular it will look at the politics and strategies of the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Palestinian national liberation struggle: A socialist analysis

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine during the First Intifada: From Opportunity to Marginalization (1987–1990)

A history of the Palestinian left

Despite being dismissed, patronised and subject to constant discipline, high-schoolers have always been at the forefront of fighting for social change and radical politics. The recent school strikes for Palestine were only the latest in a long line of protests, rebellions and uprisings against the system that have been led by students. This session will feature stories of high school rebellion from Eva Sutherland and Audra Hope, two organisers of the School Strike for Palestine, and Diane Fieldes, a veteran socialist activist who began protesting as a high-schooler during the Vietnam War.

PANEL – High school rebellion: from the Vietnam War to the school strike for Palestine

Fighters for Palestinian liberation commonly draw on the legacy of the revolt that overthrew Apartheid in South Africa. This talk examines the origins of the Apartheid system in the development of the highly profitable gold mines of the Transvaal in the late 19th century. It looks at the explosive struggles of the subsequent years, the emergence of the working class movement and the role of the left and ruling class forces up until the imposition of "official" Apartheid by the Nationalist government in 1948.

Chapters 1-3

Workers, War & the Origins of Apartheid [book]

Raising the Red Flag: The International Socialist League & the Communist Party of South Africa 1914-1932 [book]

Apartheid South Africa: class and race in a colonial settler state

In 2016 and 2017, millions of South Koreans took to the streets every week for 20 weeks calling for the resignation of then president, Park Geun-Hye, who would be impeached and imprisoned for corruption in March 2017. The protests – known as the “Candlelight Revolution”- were part of the long history of class struggle and mass strikes for democracy in South Korea. Throughout the twentieth century, Korean workers and students have been at the forefront of both the anti-colonial struggle against the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) of the Korean peninsula, as well as the struggle for democratic rights in the newly formed South Korea after 1945. In defiance of the brutal US-backed dictatorships of Syngman Rhee, Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan, Korean workers, students and ordinary citizens organised and fought for their rights as part of the Minjung (peoples') movement. This talk looks at the history of class struggle and mass strikes in South Korea – with a special focus on the 1980 Gwangju Uprising and 1987 June Struggle – which spurred millions of ordinary Koreans into democratic and revolutionary struggle. It will discuss the importance of these struggles and how their legacy has continued to inspire generations of South Koreans today in the fight for a better world.

Mass strikes and class struggle: a short history of the Minjung (Peoples') Movement and the struggle for democracy in South Korea

Amid an inflation crisis, Argentina's new far-right president Javier Milei has launched a series of attacks on workers' rights, civil liberties, and public services. His first round of attacks was defeated in February by mass movement involving spontaneous protests, assemblies, and a general strike of over one million people. Now the government is trying to crack down on abortion rights, and a new round of protests has begun.

‘We’re not going to take it!’ – mass protests in Argentina

Argentina: the struggle against Milei

Most supporters of Palestine tend to view the issue in nationalist terms, as a struggle with the Palestinians and the broader Arab world on one side, and the Israeli state and its western allies on the other. Yet any serious look at the situation today, or at the history of the 20th century for that matter, shows that the Arab states have done nothing to seriously challenge Zionism or its Western backers. This talk will explore some of this history, and explain why Arab elites are not simply unreliable allies, but are actually complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Egypt’s genocidal embrace of Israel

Why won’t the world save the Palestinians?

Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East

Money, Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East

Why the Arab regimes are no friends of Palestine

For those who see that capitalism is a rotten system while also rejecting the top-down "socialism" of Stalinism and its ilk, workers' co-operatives can seem like an attractive alternative. This session will engage with the theory and reality of workers' co-ops and explain why Marxists are critical of an approach to fighting capitalism that involves setting up islands of "workers' control" without challenging the system as a whole.

Are workers’ cooperatives the alternative to capitalism?

Democracy At Work: A Cure for Capitalism

Are workers' co-operatives an alternative to capitalism?

The Social Democratic Workers Party in Austria was, after the German party, the largest Marxist organisation before the First World War. It organised workers on the multinational Austrian side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Both its approach to the "national question" and to class struggle differed dramatically from those of the Bolsheviks in tsarist Russia, the other multinational empire in Europe. It also produced very different results: the breakup of the Austrian Party along national lines; and missed revolutionary opportunities.

Nationalism, reform and revolution in imperial Austria

For eight decades, the world has been on the edge of a nuclear precipice. The US and the Soviet Union each had at their disposal a massive array of launchers ready to fire a barrage of nuclear weapons that could, in a single day, kill hundreds of millions of people.

The world is an even more dangerous place today. The capacity of nuclear armed superpowers like the US and China to obliterate human life with the touch of a button far exceeds that of the Cold War period. Nuclear weapons are the most obscene but logical conclusion of a whole system based on economic, political and military competition.

Nuclear imperialism: the destroyer of worlds

Since its founding over a century ago, the Australian Labor Party has expressed a contradiction at the heart of the workers’ movement. As the political vehicle of the trade union officials, it maintains an important connection to the working class. Throughout its history, however, the ALP have more often than not acted against the interests of their working class base, ruling in the interests of the bosses.

This session will examine this contradiction from a Marxist perspective: how it helps us make sense of the ALP’s history and why the party is an enemy of the working class.

The Australian Labor Party: an enemy of the working class

There are times in history when socialists have had to work hard to convince people that capitalism is a bankrupt system, but that is definitely not the case today. While the billionaires have seen their obscene wealth explode in the past few years, workers and students are being smashed. From the cost of groceries to the crumbling state of schools, hospitals and public transport in our cities, life is getting harder and harder for the vast majority of people, even in the richest countries on earth. Meanwhile Israel is slaughtering Palestinians in their beds, heat-records are being broken every month, and two genocidal geriatrics are fighting to lead the US empire into war with China. 

Marxism 2024 will kick off with this urgent discussion about how we can build a movement to end the spiral of horror. Opening night is open to all day and full weekend ticketholders.

Opening night: resisting war and capitalism

Climate change is potentially the biggest crisis humanity faces. What does climate fiction offer us as we step into the great unknowns of future decades? Science fiction has always been a deeply political genre, offering up arguments and warnings about the state of our society, as well as solutions. Marxists and radicals, as writers and readers, have to grapple with this crisis and the question it poses: socialism or barbarism? 

Imagining the end of the world: apocalyptic climate fiction

Lenin once wrote: “Capitalist society is and has always been horror without end”. It should come as no surprise, then, that some of the most cruel realities of the capitalism’s rampant inequality and oppression find their way onto film. The horror genre is replete with ghouls and monsters that embody what terrifies us most about the system – from the nuclear dread of the original 

, to the inspection of racism and poverty in 

’s portrayal of the consequences of a revolution crushed. Join this discussion for a tour of some of horror’s best and worst, well known and obscure, from all across the world and history.

A Marxist analysis of horror

Socialist Alternative is the biggest revolutionary organisation in Australia since the 1920s. We are the only socialist group with a national presence and an expanding membership. Founded by a few dozen people based overwhelmingly in Melbourne in the mid-1990s, SA has grown to over 500 activists spread across the country. While this is nowhere near what we ultimately need, it’s an important achievement in a context where the broader left has otherwise disintegrated.

This talk will examine the history of the group and explain our approach to building socialist organisation.

Socialist Alternative: our history and perspectives

The country is host to one of the most diverse and dynamic radical lefts in the world, with a long history of both collaboration and debate. With a country reeling from economic crisis and facing an insurgent far right, there are both opportunities for revolutionaries to find an audience and serious challenges. This session will feature a speaker from the Workers' Socialist Movement (MST), one of the largest Trotskyist groups in the country.

Argentina: Opportunities for the left grow amid debates within the FIT-Unidad

Trotskyism in Argentina: opportunities and challenges

L’Étincelle (The Spark) are a French revolutionary socialist group, active as a current within the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA). This session will feature guest speakers from the party who will explain the situation facing revolutionaries in France in the wake of the latest strike wave against Macron.

Revolutionary politics in France

The Revolutionary Socialist League is a Marxist organisation, founded in Kenya in 2018 by radicals who rejected the pro-China politics of the Communist Party of Kenya. This session will feature RSL activists who will outline their struggle to build an internationalist and socialist left in Africa.

Interview. Ezra Otieno, leadership of the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) of Kenya

Kenya: Manifesto of the Revolutionary Socialist League

What’s behind Kenya’s protests?

The Kenya Socialist journal

Books by Shiraz Durrani on the history of the Kenyan left

Building a socialist left in Africa: the Revolutionary Socialist League of Kenya

Despite the fact that real wages have fallen at the fastest rate in decades over the past 12 months, there has been little resistance in Australia in the form of working class struggle. Union coverage and industrial action are at historic lows. This situation may seem daunting, but it isn't completely new. This talk will look at the roots of this defeat, and explain how organised radicals have rebuilt the union movement from the ground up before.

What can we learn from past union revivals?

Our unions in crisis: how did it come to this?

Trade Unionism in Australia

Rebuilding unions and class power in 2024

From below-inflation wage 'rises' to the end of progressive income tax, from privatisation of public housing to further restrictions on the right to strike- the ALP and the Australian capitalist class today in lock-step attacking workers. How do we explain Labor's appalling record, and what can activists and workers do to build resistance to a right wing Labor government?

Workers under attack from ALP and capital

In many parts of the world, the major electoral battles are between the so-called political centre and the far right 

Trump vs Biden, Le Pen vs Macron, and so on. The threat of insurgent far-right forces is used in an attempt to re-legitimise ailing mainstream capitalist parties. But the parties of the centre are invariably the ones that have laid the basis for far-right victories through their wholesale adoption of neoliberalism and normalisation of racism.

Paul Mason’s ‘popular front’ of failures is not the way to beat the right

The Extreme Centre

Can the political centre defeat the far right?

WW2 is popularly presented as a crusade against the threat to humanity and democracy posed by fascism. The war saw massive popular armed movements emerge to resist the Nazis from France to Yugoslavia, driven by the desire of ordinary people to rid the world of the poison of fascism. So why did the victory of these movements and the military defeat of the Axis powers not wipe fascist politics from Europe?  This talk will explain how the the 'anti-fascist' Allied imperialists gave the fascists a lifeline, preserving their influence in key sections of the state and society, and laying the basis for their eventual resurgence

Chapter 4 from A People's History of Europe From World War I to Today

Nazi Billionaires. The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties

Where did all the Nazis go? Post-war Europe and the limits of "denazification"

Indian politics is dominated by the personality of Narendra Modi. Since his re-election in 2019, there has been a steady erosion of democracy and an increase in state and mob violence towards India’s 195 million Muslims. But Modi, and the government he leads, cannot be understood without looking at the growth of the powerful National Volunteer Organisation (RSS), an extra-parliamentary fascist movement of 4 million active members. The RSS is rooted in Hindutva, an extremist Hindu nationalist tradition which has had links with European fascism since the 1920s. This session will discuss the politics behind the rise of fascism in India today.

India’s two hegemonies

Modi’s India: Hindu nationalism and the rise of ethnic democracy

The RSS: a menace to India

Fascism, Hindutva and the Modi government

Fascism confronts us today not just as a dark chapter in twentieth century history, but as an emerging danger in our own times. It demands serious analysis, yet the explanation offered by mainstream thinkers is deeply unsatisfactory. Theorising fascism requires an understanding of the capitalist societies in which it emerges, the crises these societies produce and the class tensions inherent to them. This is the focus of the session.

Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It

Marxism and Fascism

Fascism and the working class

We got Trumped Results and prospects after the 2016 election

Social class and fascism

The situation is dire: after a record-breaking heatwave in the northern hemisphere this year, the UN chief warned we now face "global boiling". Capitalists and their governments have openly abandoned the 1.5C target for average temperature rises that is the acknowledged ceiling for a livable planet and stable ecosystem. So is it too late? Have we missed the boat? This talk will make that climate action is still possible, and explain why a socialist society based on democratic workers' power is the only way we are going to save the planet.

Why it's not too late to save the planet

The concept of "degrowth" has in recent years received greater attention as a framework for developing a serious response to climate change. Theories of degrowth argue that environmental destruction is inherent to societies organised for economic growth, and that resolving ecological crisis requires the restructuring of society to implement a contraction of economic production and consumption.

This session will present a Marxist engagement with degrowth theorists, evaluating the extent to which it may or may not be a positive contribution to Marxism as a theory of working-class revolution.

Thinking about ecology with Marx – A review of Kohei Saito’s "Marx in the Anthropocene"

Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

Karl Marx’s “degrowth communism”?

Degrowth: A response

What do Marxists say about degrowth communism?

It's estimated there are around 1.5 billion cars in the world today. Of the ten largest corporations of the world, three are car manufacturers and six are oil companies. There's no doubt about it – capitalism loves cars. Cars burden working-class people with debt, they mean we spend hours stuck in traffic just trying to get to work, they devour public space and poison the air. This isn't the fault of working-class people – private car ownership is promoted aggressively by the capitalist class, and cities are constructed to make cars necessary. This talk will look at the relationship of cars to industry, urban planning and social control.

Cars, class and capitalism

Auto-capitalism: a political history of cars

Capitalism shapes every element of our lives, from the conditions we work in to what we put on our plates. Food production, distribution, and consumption patterns are shaped by the capitalist class. This has created a world where a billion are undernourished, millions go without food every day, and the biggest food company in the world, Nestle, admits that more than 60% of its products are bad for people. This session will cover how the priorities of capitalist rule determine what we eat.

Gastro-capitalism: a political history of food

From the opium wars of the 19th century to the opioid epidemic of the 21st, capitalism's drive for profit has driven addiction and dependency on drugs for centuries. At the same time, the use of drugs has been regulated and criminalised by the state, as a means of social control and a pretext for political repression. This talk will explore the relationship between capitalism and drugs.

Capitalism is turning us into addicts

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Narco-capitalism: a political history of drugs

The COVID pandemic, economic crisis and climate catastrophe have all exposed the continued and seeming irresolvable divide between the first and third worlds. To many, this divide can be explained as a simple case of rich countries getting rich off the back of poor ones. This can find echoes in the left in concepts like 'unequal exchange' and the 'labour aristocracy', which argue that first world workers benefit alongside their bosses from the exploitation of the third world. This talk will provide a critique of these ideas and argue that the central divide is the same across the globe- one between the bosses that organise exploitation, and a working class who have an interest in ending it.

Why the world is unequal

Is there a labour aristocracy in Australia?

“Exploring working-class consciousness: a critique of the theory of the ‘labour aristocracy’”

Do workers benefit from the exploitation of the third world?

Karl Marx was scathing of most of the professional philosophers of his day, writing famously in 1845: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."  Today, bourgeois academic philosophy is further removed than ever from a real engagement with the world and strategies for radical change. At the same time, Marx and many Marxists since have engaged seriously with the ideas of mainstream philosophy. Can Marxists learn anything from the discipline? Come along to this talk to find out.

History and Class Consciousness

The Point is to Change It! An Introduction to Marxist Philosophy

Marxism vs bourgeois philosophy

The role of union officials is to act as bargaining agents over the terms under which their members’ ability to work is sold to bosses. They are under pressure from their members below, who want to defend and improve wages and conditions, and from employers and governments above, who want to maximise profits and the economic growth they generate. Consequently, as British Marxist Tony Cliff argued: “At all decisive moments the union bureaucracy is bound to side with the state, but in the meantime it vacillates”. This talk will explain the roots and nature of trade union bureaucracies, and explore the role they play in constraining and shaping class struggle – a central question for revolutionaries to confront.

The rank and file and the trade union bureaucracy

Managers of Discontent

Chapter 2: Marxism, bureaucracy and the trade unions from Marxism & Trade Union Struggle: The General Strike of 1926

Understanding the trade union bureaucracy

In most of the world, Stalinist states have long since disintegrated. Many of the Communist parties that supported them have likewise collapsed. But even where organised Stalinism appears to have vanished, its ideological legacy lives on. As in every oppressive state, the Stalinist bureaucracy had to produce an ideology that justified its existence. We are used to the rulers of free market capitalist societies promoting some mixture of nationalism, “democratic” values and religious piety to convince their victims that we're all on the same team. Stalinism had its own versions of those tricks. But they were almost all expressed in the language of Marxism. That has left a poisonous legacy that holds back social movements to this day.  This talk will explain how Stalinism distorted Marxism, and why these ideas persist in parts of the left today.

The fraud of Stalinism

Stalinism's long shadow

Stalinism today

There are few historical figures who have been subject to as much abuse as Leon Trotsky. In Stalin's Soviet Union he was slandered as a Nazi collaborator or agent of Western imperialism. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, labelled him the “ogre of Europe” for fighting to extend socialist revolution across the continent. The ire that Trotsky has provoked in defenders of the status-quo stems from his uncompromising struggle against a world built on exploitation, violence and oppression. He dedicated his life to the socialist revolution and held a profound belief that the working class has the ability to lead it. This talk will explore Trotsky's life and role in the Russian Revolution, and his fight against the counter-revolutionary crimes of Stalinism.

Who was Leon Trotsky?

The Prophet: The life of Leon Trotsky by Issac Deutscher. Trotsky (Vol 1 - 4)

The contemporary narrative of Jewish history is one of ghettos, pogroms, suffering, oppression – Jews as the eternal victims. But in the 1930s, Jewish political currents engaged with non-Jewish socialists in struggle: they fought fascists, engaged in tenants' strikes, formed defence groups, led mass demonstrations and linked up with the struggles of other oppressed groups. From New York to London to Warsaw, Jews engaged in class struggle and fought anti-Semitism as part of a wider left. Janey Stone, co-author of forthcoming book 

, will look at the different political currents and how their strategies played out in this tempestuous decade.

Revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands - the radical Jewish tradition

Socialists, communists, Bundists and Zionists: Jews on the left in the 1930s

The neoliberal offensive of the 1980s saw a massive attack against the gains that workers had managed to win from the system in the post-war years. Wages were cut, unemployment rose, public services were privatised, the banks deregulated and union rights were restricted. We are still living through the consequences of this turn in international politics and economics today. This talk will explore the origins of the neoliberal turn and explore its legacies for today.

Theorising Neoliberalism

The Neoliberal era in Britain

Chapter 9 and 10 from Zombie Capitalism

The origins of the neoliberal order

The period from the end of the Second World War until the recession of the mid 1970s saw one of the longest and most sustained economic booms in the history of capitalism. Why did this take place? And why did it finally come to an end? While the success of these years is often put down to Keynesian economics this talk will unpack the real roots, and limits, of capitalism's "golden age" and explain why even during this period the system continued to be one of exploitation and oppression.

Chapter 3 from Explaining the Crisis

Chapters 7 and 8 from Zombie Capitalism

Western capitalism since the war

The post-war boom: capitalism's golden age?

The Wall Street crash of 1929 was a watershed moment. It not only plunged millions of workers into poverty but had a dramatic economic and political impact on world capitalism. In its wake, major economies embraced protectionism and state intervention and turned away from the "free" market. This laid the basis for a renewed intensification of international and domestic political tensions on everything from the remilitarisation of Europe to the expansion of Japanese imperialism into China and the crisis of the Weimar Republic in Germany. This session will unpack both the reasons why the Great Depression broke out and how it reshaped world capitalism for years to come.

Chapter 26 from The Deluge: The Great War and the Making of the Global Order, 1916-1931

Chapter 2 from Prisoners of the American Dream

Chapter 6: The Great Slump from Zombie Capitalism

Chapters 2 - 6 from The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

How the Great Depression reshaped world capitalism

When it comes to a socialist analysis of cities, David Harvey is a towering figure, with decades of influential writing on the subject. He offers a searing critique of how our urban environments are shaped by the priorities of capitalism, and champions urban rebellions.

However, his analysis rests on a problematic reading of Marxism and capitalist crisis, and an approach to anti-capitalist resistance which takes us away from working class struggle, in favour of more ill-defined and ultimately ineffective struggles over space. This session will offer a critique of Harvey and an alternative Marxist approach.

David Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development: A Marxist critique, Capital & Class

Social Justice and the City: Revised Edition

The urbanization of capital : studies in the history and theory of capitalist urbanization

Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution

David Harvey's Theory of Accumulation by Dispossession: A Marxist Critique

Capitalism and cities: a critique of David Harvey's theory of urban development

Australia is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Data shows that the cost of housing has increased 412% over the past 25 years. After an endless construction boom, housing is more unaffordable than ever, mortgage and rental stress have increased and homelessness is on the rise. How did it come to this? This talk will explain the market failure at the heart of the housing crisis.

Filter by theme